Alfred H Dunhill MC
1955 - 1956
Alfred Henry Dunhill MC (1896–1971) was the son of Alfred Dunhill, the founder of the famous motorities and smokers’ accessories business. He was Chairman of Alfred Dunhill Limited from 1928 to 1961, growing the family business into an international luxury goods and tobacco empire and securing the Queen’s Award to Industry for export achievements.
During WW1 he enlisted as a Private in the East Surrey Regiment and also served with the Royal West Surrey Regiment. He was awarded the Military Cross in 1918 for his bravery at Frégicourt during the Battle of the Somme. Towards the end of the war he received a shrapnel wound in his leg which troubled him for the rest of his life.
In April 1941 two landmines dropped during the London Blitz devastated the company's iconic Duke Street premises. Alfred Dunhill brought his desk and a table out into the street and was famously photographed, seated amidst the debris on the pavement, selling what remained of the tobacco pipe stock to passers-by. This act of defiance quickly became legendary in British retail history. According to a famous story, Dunhill's staff called Sir Winston Churchill at 0400 am on the morning of the explosion to reassure him that his private cigar collection, stored in the shop's humidor, had already been moved to safety. It took until 1953 before the shop was completely rebuilt.
“It is important to place Mr. Dunhill in his shop; for I fancy the shop is his whole life … Keeping shop is to him a fine art.” A E Todd, Tobacco, February 1941
Alfred H Dunhill was also widely respected as a leading historian of the cultural history of smoking and was the author of The Gentle Art of Smoking (Max Reinhardt, 1954).